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Thank you for your time.” The class filed out slowly, many of the students taking a minute to chat with one another as they gathered their things. What Kathy had said about friendships ran through my head, but I felt no desire to join any of them. They were strangers.
    Was that the way I felt? Or the way Melanie felt? It was hard to tell. Maybe I was naturally antisocial. My personal history supported that theory, I supposed. I'd never formed an attachment strong enough to keep me on any planet for more than one life.
    I noticed Robert and Faces Sunward lingering at the classroom door, locked in a discussion that seemed intense. I could guess the subject.
    “Fire World stories ruffle feathers.”
    I started slightly.
    The Seeker was standing at my elbow. The woman usually announced her approach with the quick tap of her hard shoes. I looked down now to see that she was wearing sneakers for once–black, of course. She was even tinier without the extra inches.
    “It's not my favorite subject,” I said in a bland voice. “I prefer to have firsthand experience to share.”
    “Strong reactions from the class.”
    “Yes.”
    She looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for more. I gathered my notes and turned to put them in my bag.
    “You seemed to react as well.”
    I placed my papers in the bag carefully, not turning.
    “I wondered why you didn't answer the question.”
    There was a pause while she waited for me to respond. I didn't.
    “So… why didn't you answer the question?”
    I turned around, not concealing the impatience on my face. “Because it wasn't pertinent to the lesson, because Robert needs to learn some manners, and because it's no one else's business.” I swung my bag to my shoulder and headed for the door. She stayed right beside me, rushing to keep up with my longer legs. We walked down the hallway in silence. It wasn't until we were outside, where the afternoon sun lit the dust motes in the salty air, that she spoke again.
    “Do you think you'll ever settle, Wanderer? On this planet, maybe? You seem to have an affinity for their… feelings.”
    I bridled at the implied insult in her tone. I wasn't even sure how she meant to insult me, but it was clear that she did. Melanie stirred resentfully.
    “I'm not sure what you mean.”
    “Tell me something, Wanderer. Do you pity them?”
    “Who?” I asked blankly. “The Walking Flowers?”
    “No, the humans.”
    I stopped walking, and she skidded to a halt beside me. We were only a few blocks from my apartment, and I'd been hurrying in hopes of getting away from her, though likely as not, she'd invite herself in. But her question caught me off guard.
    “The humans?”
    “Yes. Do you pity them?”
    “Don't you?”
    “No. They were quite the brutal race. They were lucky to survive each other as long as they did.”
    “Not every one of them was bad.”
    “It was a predilection of their genetics. Brutality was part of their species. But you pity them, it seems.”
    “It's a lot to lose, don't you think?” I gestured around us. We stood in a parklike space between two ivy-covered dormitories. The deep green of the ivy was pleasing to the eye, especially in contrast to the faded red of the old bricks. The air was golden and soft, and the smell of the ocean gave a briny edge to the honey sweet fragrance of the flowers in the bushes. The breeze caressed the bare skin of my arms. “In your other lives, you can't have felt anything so vivid.
    Wouldn't you pity anyone who had this taken from them?” Her expression stayed flat, unmoved.
    I made an attempt to draw her in, to make her consider another viewpoint. “Which other worlds have you lived on?”

    She hesitated, then squared her shoulders. “None. I've only lived on Earth.” That surprised me. She was as much a child as Robert. “Only one planet? And you chose to be a Seeker in your first life?”
    She nodded once, her chin set.
    “Well. Well, that's your business.” I started walking